Apartment house keeps memories alive

May 17, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Built in 1929, the Dewella Apartments on East Wilshire Avenue in Fullerton were placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The eight-unit apartment complex is named Dewella after the original owner's daughter, who died shortly after giving birth in 1921. A sign with the name "Dewella" lights up at night and is required to be there according to the original deed. KEVIN LARA

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Built in 1929, the Dewella Apartments on East Wilshire Avenue in Fullerton were placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The eight-unit apartment complex is named Dewella after the original owner's daughter, who died in 1921. KEVIN LARA

Dewella Bruns (1898-1921), the daughter of Herman Bruns, died soon after giving birth. As a memorial to his daughter, Herman Bruns named his new apartment complex after her in 1929. COURTESY FULLERTON LIBRARY HISTORY ROOM

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Dewella Chism, 72, seen here on a cruise, is the niece of Dewella Bruns Seaburg and remembers visiting the apartment house named after her aunt. COURTESY DEWELLA CHISM

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The Dewella Apartments look pretty much as they did in this 1929 photo. COURTESY OF FULLERTON LIBRARY HISTORY ROOM

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Earl Seaburg Jr., 92, is the son of Dewella Bruns Seaburg for whom the Dewella Apartments are named. Dewella died three months after her son was born. COURTESY OF EARL SEABURG jR.

Built in 1929, the Dewella Apartments on East Wilshire Avenue in Fullerton were placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The eight-unit apartment complex is named Dewella after the original owner's daughter, who died shortly after giving birth in 1921. A sign with the name "Dewella" lights up at night and is required to be there according to the original deed. KEVIN LARA

Notable: A full page of advertisements in the Dec. 14, 1929 Daily News Tribune announced the opening of "The beautiful new Dewella Apartments." The apartments were furnished with "positively every desirable convenience," the ad stated.

FULLERTON – His memory is failing a bit, 92-year old Earl Seaburg Jr. still remembers cutting the grass as a teenager at the two-story apartment house on East Wilshire Avenue.

The eight-unit apartment house was built and owned by his grandfather, Ed Bruns.

The U-shaped, white-stucco building with its rust-colored clay roof is set back from the street, overlooking a courtyard of green grass, split by winding pathways, flowerbeds and hedges around the perimeter.

"They were pretty nice apartments," said Seaburg, a widower, from his home in Osakis, Minn. "There weren't too many apartments around in those days."

Particularly prominent was the neon sign, spelling out DEWELLA, positioned on a pole in the back of the courtyard facing the street.

Dewella was Earl Jr.'s mother.

He never knew her.

Dewella Bruns Seaburg died April 5, 1921, in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, just three months after giving birth to Earl Jr.

Earl Jr.'s father worked for a railroad line in Minnesota, leaving his son to be raised by his father's parents in Ottumwa, Minn.

In 1929, Bruns and his wife, Edna, built the apartment house in Fullerton as an investment. The couple had moved from the Midwest to Orange County about 20 years earlier.

Wanting to keep the memory of his daughter alive, Bruns named his new apartment house the Dewella Apartments. The neon sign was added within months of the opening.

Seaburg saw the Dewella for the first time when spending a few years with the Bruns at their Anaheim home during his college years. Seaburg would drive his grandfather's car to classes at Fullerton College, just three blocks from the Dewella. He remembers cutting the grass after class.

"My job was to keep it nice," he said.

Dewella also had a brother, Curtiss, 15 years younger.

Curtis Bruns went on to have his own daughter, and he named her Dewella to honor his deceased sister.

That Dewella, now 72 and living in Marana, Ariz. for 36 years, also remembers visiting the apartments as a child with her grandfather. She was drawn to the neon sign.

"When people would walk by, I would say, I'm the Dewella," Dewella Bruns Chism said. "They would just laugh."

Curtis Bruns, however, left the family when Dewella Bruns Chism was a toddler so she never got to learn about her deceased aunt for whom the apartments were named.

Nor did her grandparents ever talk about the death of their daughter.

About every four years, Chism still visits the Dewella on trips to California to visit her children.

"Everything is exactly the same as it was," Chism said. "It was a beautiful stunning place. ... It still is."

Today, the Dewella is among the oldest apartment buildings in Fullerton. The neon sign is believed to be the oldest in town. (The second oldest is the POLICE sign in front of the Police Station).

One-bedroom units rent for $1,395 a month, with no air conditioning or central heat but there are rarely vacancies, said Ed McFadden, who manages the property.

"It has the old-world charm of the '20's and '30's and no modern amenities," McFadden said jokingly.

Currently, the apartments are owned by Stephen Sulzer, 46, of Fullerton – only the fourth person to own the 85-year-old complex.

"This building belongs to the community," Sulzer said. "I just kind of take care of it."

Dewella Bruns Seaburg never got to experience the joys of motherhood.

And there doesn't appear seem to be any family tales passed down through generations describing what she was like. What was her favorite color? Did she enjoy dancing? Did she read poetry? Enjoy sunsets?

But as long as the apartment house on Wilshire Avenue stands, Dewella's name will endure.

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